February 20 movement: reflections of a young activist

The 20th February movement was seen by some as elitist and too focused on
political demands, while the people were
more concerned with daily economic hardship. The main challenge for young
activists now is to re-establish a social dialogue within Moroccan society, says Sarra El
Idrissi

With
the removal of Zine el-Abdine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, the Arab world erupted
in popular protests in favour of democracy and dignity. This was the genesis of
the Arab spring. Morocco,
long considered one of the most stable Arab countries, has not been immune to
this regional shift. Activists
connected with the February 20 Movement have begged to differ with the concept
of the
Moroccan exception.

Inspired by the Tunisian & Egyptian
uprisings, a group of young
Moroccan activists, myself included, used social media to spread calls for a protest on
February 20, 2011. Several calls to endorse the protests could be
found across the digital world. “I am
Moroccan and I will take part in the protest on February 20th,” activists said, going
on line to explain their reasons for marching: freedom, gender equality, better
living standards and education, labor rights, a lift on the restrictions on the
media and minority rights.

As a democrat and a feminist, I responded to the
call for the 20 February demonstration. I believed, and still do, that contrary
to all the talk about “the Moroccan exception”, Morocco is not that
distinct from the other Arab countries. It is full of corruption, a vast black economy and deep social inequality.
Nevertheless, the state still refers to the country as democratic. This
paradoxical position pushed the February 20 Movement to denounce the “unseen
part of the iceberg”, through agreement on a wide platform of demands which
included a call for parliamentary monarchy, the election of a constituent
assembly, an end to corruption and the imprisonment of political dissidents,
language rights for Berber speakers, and a government committed to social
justice.

After
a year of demonstrations, sit-ins, and political ‘reform’ initiated by the
Palace, what has the movement accomplished ? What has changed since the early
calls to action, and what remains the same?

Despite
all the talk about reform, political repression
remains a problem in Morocco. El
Makhzen, as Moroccans refer to the political apparatus, is still very much
in place. As early as March of last year, the regime was responding with force
to peaceful demonstrators. When activists attempted a sit-in
outside the headquarters of the “DST”, La direction Générale de la surveillance
du territoire, the counter-intelligence unit in Temara, near Rabat, where a
secret underground prison is widely believed to be located, the level of force used against the
protestors helped to make Temara a symbol of repression and torture, similar to
what the hidden prison Tazmamart represented to the older generation during
King Hassan II's regime.

The
ban on demonstrations scheduled for later in May, the frequent detention of
activists, and the arrest
of the journalist Rachid Nini, editor-in chief of Al Massae, Morocco’s
best-selling newspaper, were not only alarming in themselves, but were
complemented by a defence of the DST by the state, which sees the unit as an
essential organ for the protection of the Moroccan territory, highlighting its
role in arresting the group accused of committing a
terrorist attack in Marrakech earlier in the year.
May also saw a revolt
by Salafi prisoners in Salé against detention conditions and “the
anti-terror law”, an incident which only added to the state’s sense of being
threatened. The result of this general atmosphere was the imposition of further
restrictions, incarcerations, and aggressive tactics in dispersing protesters,
with references to the growing influence in the movement of “Adlistes” (members
of the banned Islamist group Justice & Charity ) and Salafis, and the need
to stop demonstrations from affecting the image of the country.

As media
observers rightly pointed out, the violent repression of the demonstrations
signalled "the end of recess”.
“The concessions have so far been more than enough,” claimed Moncef
Belkhayat, ex-minister of youth and sports to a national TV, “there is an
institutional process in progress and they have to comply.”

The new draft Constitution drawn up was the work of an appointed
committee instead of an elected constituent assembly, and like its
predecessors, concentrated power in the hands of the monarch. As the Economist noted, the constitution left
the King in complete control as the “supreme arbiter” of political and
institutional life. This gave many of
us the feeling that nothing had changed. By calling for a massive “YES” for the
referendum, the King was far maintaining
his "arbiter role”. Very little time was allocated to democratic
discussion. Political parties - a
majority of whom backed the “yes” vote -
only saw a draft of the Constitution at the last minute. "On referendum day, I will not vote
because the Constitution does not concern me,” said a student supporter of the
February 20 Movement in a video calling for boycott. “It only protects
their interests. The constitutional commission does not represent the
people.... The Constitution was drafted undemocratically. Now they want us to
vote 'yes' without even understanding it”.

The
referendum was held on the 1st of July, and the Ministry of Interior announced that the
constitution had been approved by 98.50% of voters. Despite protest movements
calling for a boycott, government officials claimed turnout was approximately
73%, a figure that was contested by election observation bodies such as the
Collectif Associatif pour l'Observation des Elections.

The
new Constitution was ratified in September and parliamentary elections held on
the 25th of November. The relatively low turnout and the big win for
the Justice and Development Party (PJD) was extensively discussed
in the international press, including the appointment of Abdelilah Benkirane, the PJD’s head, as prime minister,
and the elections were largely seen as
a positive step by the international community.

The
moves toward democratic transition are
insufficient and ineffective. Not only is the regime still not dealing with people's main grievances over the failing
public health and education systems, rampant corruption, unemployment and
wealth inequality, but the appointment of the king's former classmate and close
friend Fouad Ali El Himma, the founder of the
Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM)
- a so-called “administrative party”- as advisor to the king, was criticised
by the opposition as signalling the establishment of a shadow
government, which literally speaking, will compete with Benkirane's elected Islamist
government and prevent any real reform initiated by the Islamists. This decision, more than anything, was
perceived as an offence against the
democratic transition, and an insult to any truly reform-minded Moroccan.

As
activists, we must now take stock of where we might have gone wrong. We have had to admit that the massive “yes”
expressed by the Moroccan people during the referendum revealed a different
reality from the one we desired, and pushed us to acknowledge that we had
failed, as a movement, to mobilise the people. The 20th February movement was
seen by some, including those within it
, as elitist and too focused on political demands, while
the people were more concerned with the
economic hardship which affects their daily life. I believe that this divergence
explains to a large extent why the movement lost its power.

Pro-monarchy
factions, El Makhzen included, were much more successful in generating a
feeling amongst Moroccans that they were participating in a referendum not so
much on the constitution, but on the king himself. For many people, the emotional attachment to the monarchy
outweighed any constitutional issues. We were, and we still probably are, talking a different language from
the one that the vast majority of the Moroccan
people understand. Morocco still
has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the Arab world, with an illiteracy figure of close to 48% for those aged 15 and
over, and so we have had to recognise that this population is educated below the
threshold for mass civic movement towards democracy. In such a context,
brainwashing is easy.

The 'yes' vote for the Constitution also suggests that our
movement underestimated the
sophistication of the repressive propaganda of the regime. As Hamza Hachlaf, a
young February 20 activist from my town of Fes told the Akhbar el Yawm
newspaper on July 5th following the referendum: “20 February had neither the
experience nor the logistical resources available to the state and its
political connections. Despite this, it stood firm against all odds, and it
will stand. We keep our optimism about the future of the movement; something
definitely lifted on February 20th and the parody of a referendum cannot stop it.”

As
feminist activists, we are concerned about this future, and feel threatened by
the emergence of the Islamist factions in the movement, which we saw reflected
in some of the demonstrations organized -
particularly in conservative cities like Fes - where men and women were separated to prevent mixing during the
May demonstrations. The growing presence in the movement of the banned “Justice
and Charity” group negatively influenced the gender equality agenda, and
gradually, gender rights slogans were no longer raised. This is a big transformation for a movement
which saw women at its forefront in the early protests, where most
spokespersons were young female activists. The astonishing withdrawal of the Justice & Charity group in December from the
movement, citing differences with the “ideas” of some of its youth (despite
expressing continued belief in the movement’s demands) has lessened concerns
about gender rights. However, the movement is weakened considerably by the loss
of that faction, which represents a significant part of the movement. And even with the departure of Justice and
Charity, our voice as women within the movement is no longer as influential as
it was initially when it comes to taking crucial decisions about the
strategy of the movement. This has led many female activists to suggest putting
a stop to the weekly sit-ins in order to allow the movement to step back, to
self-criticize and to think about the challenges we face. Unfortunately, these
suggestions have not been accepted.

However,
there is much positive ground on which
to build. We, both men and women, must remember how we felt on those early
protests: free, proud, and alive again. I believe that this is the main
achievement of the movement: the restoration of the freedom of speech and the
fall of the wall of fear in Morocco that had silenced public opinion. And this
is the best guarantee of success that we can offer of a genuine democratic
transition.

The protests and the demands
behind them created far more involvement by disparate groups than was initially
expected. The February 20 movement has
now become a loose coalition of cyber-activists, radical leftists and Islamists,
though the latter’s voice has been weakened to a large degree with Justice and
Charity’s departure. Human rights
organizations such as The Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH”) and The
Democratic Association of Moroccan Women (ADFM) have also taken
part.

I believe that the protests brought politics and social issues back to
the field of public discourse. Though
many demonstrations for minority rights had been organized in the past, - by
the Movement for Defence of Individual Liberties (MALI), which attempted to
organize public “Fast Breakings” in Ramadan, and the movement of
unemployed university graduates protesting for jobs - they never had the impact they’ve achieved in the past year. In response to the graduates' protests, the
government is setting up programs to address the issue
and absorb graduates into the public service through the immediate creation of
more than 20,000 jobs.

The
movement also extended the space for contesting state power geographically.
While on the 20 February, 2011, peaceful protests took place in
major cities like Casablanca, Tangier, Marrakech, Fes, and Rabat, there were
protests all over the country, in smaller towns like Seffrou, Guelmim, Safi,
Larache, Tetouan, and Sidi Ifni – places where protests had not been expected.

Despite
all that has happened in the past year, we have not stopped advocating for
social justice. The main challenges for
us now as activists is to heal
ideological rifts and to re-establish a social dialogue within Moroccan
society. We must also address the perception by many Moroccans that the
movement is anti-monarchic and Islamophobic. Our focus has always been on meaningful constitutional reform. If we
want the leaders to take account of our demands for meaningful constitutional
reform, we will have to make our voice
present more vividly, to listen to people, and to work to engage people in
community activism. As John Dewey said in 1939, “the democratic road is the hard
one to take. It is the road which places the greatest burden of responsibility
upon the greatest number of human beings.”

With thanks to Sara Abbas for editorial input

About the author

Sarra El Idrissi is a graduate of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah
University
in Fez, Morocco. She is a feminist activist in the 20 February movement, and a member of the regional Council of Human Rights.

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